Sudhoff claims first ever ETS TQ in Spain
Freddy Sudhoff is the Top Qualifier at Round 3 of the Yokomo Euro Touring Series in Spain. The Awesomatix driver claimed both his and his team’s first ever ETS TQ when he topped Q2 this evening in Madrid. With bad weather causing qualifying at the Asoger RC track to be reduced to just two rounds, Sudhoff would take advantage of improved track conditions to top the Q1 TQ time of Ronald Volker by seven & a half seconds. With the Yokomo driver starting 2nd on the grid, a P2 in both rounds gives Marc Rheinard 3rd in the grid ahead of his Infinity team-mate Viktor Wilck. For Bruno Coelho, the second qualifier saw another mistake from the reigning champion and the Xray driver will start 5th with team-mate & last year’s winner Alexander Hagberg facing an even tougher prospect tomorrow starting from P10.
‘My first TQ ever, I’m more than happy’, was Sudhoff’s reaction to securing pole position. Backing up his impressive showing at the previous round in Daun, the German described his Q2 performance as a ‘maximum good run’. The German explained, ‘I did no warm-up laps this time and I changed the speedo set-up and it was perfect from the first to the last lap’. He added, ‘When I saw Bruno rolled I could take it a little bit easy’. Asked his plan for tomorrow’s scheduled triple finals, he replied, ‘just continued like this. Of course we need to check the weather but I am confident with how the car and power is feeling’.
Volker said he ‘made the wrong call on the diff’ for Q2. Ending up 1.4-seconds slower than Sudhoff, the championship points leader explained, ‘I went to the diff from Thursday practice but the temperature today was lower. I struggled with on power traction but I have nobody to blame but myself. I am definitely going back with the diff but we also have to see how the track conditions are tomorrow’ – more rain expected overnight and early in the morning. Asked about challenging for the lead, the former World Champion said, ‘you can’t pass easily unless you have high grip so I think track conditions are the key to the outcome. Anyway P2 on the grid is not too bad and I’m happy for Protoform that the Type S is 1, 2 on the grid’.
Rheinard explained, ‘I did the same as in the first one and didn’t do warm-up laps. It worked out in Q1 but this time between the start line and the loop it spun out. I hadn’t crossed the loop but I lost confidence after that. Still it is good to start 3rd’. Asked his thoughts for the finals, the German who has not had an ETS win on asphalt for more than four years, replied, ‘for sure it is going to be difficult with conditions tricky to drive. Also the first A-Main is in the morning when it is extra cold. The pace is there for sure to race for the win and so far we have four cars in the final’.
In only his second ETS outing with Infinity, Wilck was content with his P4 on the grid. Commenting on his Q2 performance for which he got a P4, the Swede said, ‘I think it was a little better. I drive too careful at the beginning but drive good from the middle to the end. With Bruno’s mistake I could take 4th overall’. Happy with the changes to his car for Q2 he added, ‘for now I will keep the same set-up for tomorrow’. On the race he concluded, ‘there will always be some incidents so the result will depend on getting a clear run or not’.
‘A tough round again, conditions are very difficult’, was how Coelho described the second qualifier after he flipped his car again on the curbing. The winner the first time the ETS came to the Spanish track in 2017, he continued, ‘the first one minute 30 the car is very good but then I struggle to stay on the same pace as the others. We will change many things to try make it better for tomorrow but starting 5th is it going to be super difficult to go for the win but we must try’. Behind the Portuguese driver Akio Sobue will start sixth with Christopher Krapp 7th, Yannic Prümper 8th and Elliott Harper 9th.
With Sudhoff’s Modified TQ, Simon Lauter gave the Russian designed car double reason to celebrate as he secured the Pro Stock TQ after taking both qualifiers. The German heads an Awesomatix’s Top 6 lock out of the grid with Olivier Bultynck 2nd ahead of Dominic Vogl, joint championship leader Max Mächler, Christian Donath and Toni Rheinard. In Formula it was an Xray affair at the top of qualifying with reigning champion Jan Ratheisky taking pole with his Q1 TQ time over Infinity’s Jitse Miedema who topped Q2. Bultynck completes the Top 3 ahead of Lauter. In the 40+ Masters popular Spanish driver Toni Mateo took both qualifiers to deny early championship dominator Alexander Stocker the TQ. The new 17.5 Stock class will have Tobias Baumbach leading away the A-Main from Daniel Pöhlmann who took Q1 with Luis Moreno lining up 3rd.
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